This Blog is devoted to a unique art experiment to recreate original works of art using my own hand whilst at the same time examining the art and its meanings

Thursday, 21 March 2013

I Was Decked Out In New Colours

Welcome to part 10 of

In which we catch up to the point in Captain Britain's publishing history in which Alan Davis Joined as the artist and where everyone immediately thinks Alan Moore must be the writer and created everything that follows...

But it wasn't Alan Moore who helped relaunch Captain Britain on this occasion, it was Dave Thorpe who most people completely overlook, Which seems a bit unfairSo to redress the balance, let's hear from Dave himself from his introduction from Captain Britain Volume 4 : The Siege of CamelotWe join Dave after Paul Neary chose him to be the writer of Captain Britain:-"After a few weeks Paul explained to me his plan for relaunching Captain Britain, who had laid moribund in comics limbo for a good while. He wanted to team me up with a new artist Alan Davis, and completely overhaul the character with a new costume, introducing him to an alternative England in order to create a different identity to the Chris Claremont - Herb Trimpe creation and Steve Parkhouse's celtic epic."

"The idea was to produce a superhero relevant to a modern British readership that would reflect something of contemporary UK. It was Paul who, despite my reservations, came up with the idea of a comic sidekick in the form of an elf on a surfboard"

"Both Alan and I had much enthusiasm but little experience - we were learning on the job. I concentrated on creating a new pantheon of villains and supporting characters to populate a new story world."

"The first story had an environmental theme - The Junkheap That Walked Like a Man - environmentalism being a parallel passion in my life."

"Another story introduced a multicultural flavour, as I was living in Brixton, and so had Captain Britain taking a young Afro-Cabrribean girl for a fly around, to convey a sense of wonder"

"I developed an overarching storyline of cosmic proportions involving Saturnyne, a beautiful enigmatic figure from another dimension modelled visually on Lauren Becall..."

"and developing the concept of alternative Captain Britain's -- Captains UK, England, Albion etc and Merlyns overall control theme.Many of these characters and concepts were developed and expanded upon by subsequent writers such as Alan Moore and the Excalibur team"NEXT WEEK: It's Alan Moore, no more need be said!